The water ressources at moon and Mars are very limited compared to Earth's water reservoirs.

This means that moon and Mars cannot bear that number of men that are living down here on Earth.

The only really interesting site actually will be the detected sea. Please try to find out or to estimate how much people could live at the shores of that sea without destroying and loosing that reservoir - it has be kept constant and permanent as the earthian oceans, rivers and seas are.

I suppose at the sea cannot live millions of people but thousands only.

This may be a sufficient reason to restrict tourist, settlers, colonists and immigrants as well as number of launches and landings. Such limitations have been valid in the nearby past in earthian countries too - Malta for example.

What about that? And what about making the restrictions dependent of indices?

The water ressources at moon and Mars are very limited compared to Earth's water reservoirs.

Ok

my man Ekkie A wrote:

This means that moon and Mars cannot bear that number of men that are living down here on Earth.

But for women it's a different story, believe it people.

Ekke wrote:

The only really interesting site actually will be the detected sea. Please try to find out or to estimate how much people could live at the shores of that sea without destroying and loosing that reservoir - it has be kept constant and permanent as the earthian oceans, rivers and seas are.

I will try, but first you have to tell me what sea you are talking about.

Ekke the unstoppable wrote:

I suppose at the sea cannot live millions of people but thousands only.

You could be right. It's hard to argue at this point.

Ekke the indomitable wrote:

This may be a sufficient reason to restrict tourist, settlers, colonists and immigrants as well as number of launches and landings. Such limitations have been valid in the nearby past in earthian countries too - Malta for example.

Perhaps it will be self-limiting? No wait, I'm sorry, I meant to say "what?"

Ekke my tolerant friend wrote:

What about that? And what about making the restrictions dependent of indices?

Exactly. This is self evident.

Ekke the succinct wrote:

It's a question of overpopulation.

Yes, and it's too late to do anything about it now. We'll have to find another sea.

Ekkehard, it's too late in the week for this. I can see that you're feeling pretty tired mate. Take it easy this weekend ok?

everything is as fine as possible - I have no wife and no children, my parents are fine and so on. Some private people here in Hamburg are behaving problematically but I'm used to that.

To turn to the topic here - it seems that some initial regulations might be required because noone knows wether there are unknown martian microbes in that sea. So there might a kind of quarantine be required that can be removed later if no microbes are found or if they don't do any harm to humans.

What regulations would you consider to be required seen from your science? It's a quite new situation because they are regarding unknown and alien organisms.

everything is as fine as possible - I have no wife and no children, my parents are fine and so on. Some private people here in Hamburg are behaving problematically but I'm used to that.

Great! Same here.

I think you might be jumping the gun a bit in your first post. It's quite a stretch to now link the finding of large (near) surface ice deposits on mars with the capacity to support a human colony. But, since we are merely idling away the hours here ...

The first physical exploration of the area (if the surface ice observation holds up) will likely be with remotely operated (semi autonomous) robotic labs ... probably not too dissimilar from the spectacular pairing of Spirit and Opportunity. Their prime job will be to search for signs of life ...

If they DO find signs of life (even historical signs, meaning life that was once there but is not detectable as living now) then that may complicate plans to use the water as a resource. Possibly for ever and anon.

If they don't find life then they may then consider the increased possibility that mars is in fact a sterile planet. Which then puts a large hole in the a major reason behind sending probes there in the first place. So it may be a very long time indeed before the water resource found would then be subject to your original questions.

As regards to your questions ... merely having water is not enough to support a community on mars, obviously. So calculating how many people might be supported with a resource depends upon a very large number of other factors (known and unknown) associated with establishing a colony on mars in the first place. Atmospheric considerations loom large, gotta breathe y'know. Also, protection from severe weather patterns are a significant issue which is yet to be properly assessed. There are other things ... all of this makes it extremely difficult to do the calculation

X tonnes of water = Y number of colonists

with any faith.

So, you could probably come up with a back-of-the-envelope calculation if you wanted to ... but it would be deeply flawed by necessarily ignoring other unexplored factors.

My initial post merely was an imagination how an earthian government might think perhaps. I myself allways would prefer very detailed considerations, estimations and so on before setting a maximum number but politicians and governments may behave quite different. I am used to see them acting on poor fundaments and basics - and to show action simply instead of having in mind improvements or protections or assitances and so on.

NASA, UNO and the like may try to regulate martian tourism, settlement or colonization if there would be signs of such processes in a future decades or centuries away.

Perhaps it may start when a permanent Mars station would be established by NASA or by the Chinese (they have been suspected to intend a chinese Mars station one time last year).

So your post provides the community here with a way how to handle the politicians.

What else do all the readers and participants here think about all this?

As regards to your questions ... merely having water is not enough to support a community on mars, obviously. So calculating how many people might be supported with a resource depends upon a very large number of other factors (known and unknown) associated with establishing a colony on mars in the first place. Atmospheric considerations loom large, gotta breathe y'know. Also, protection from severe weather patterns are a significant issue which is yet to be properly assessed. There are other things ... all of this makes it extremely difficult to do the calculation

X tonnes of water = Y number of colonists

with any faith.DKH

This brings up an interesting point, its all very well saying that we can use the ice on Mars to make rocket fuel and oxygen but there will be significant power requirements to process it and live there. I suspect the amount of colonists will be limited by the power available to them.

The use of solar power may be limited due to atmospheric conditions, some dust storms can last months, which would seriously reduce the amount of power available. Other energy sources will be required, even NASA will be using a nuclear power plant on its Mars Science Laboratory (A larger version of the one used on its Viking probes). Not sure whether it would be a good idea to scale this up for a colony or create a full sized nuclear power station though.

I dont know how constant the winds on Mars are but a wind turbine might be a better alternative to a nuclear power station which would have to be fairly large to supply a reasonable sized colony. Geothermal power doesn't look like a goer at the moment as Mars appears to be inactive. So the best bet might be a hibrid solar/wind power station.

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Mars would be colonized first because of its emptyness as a planet. The photos sent by Spirit and Opportumity tend to look friendly and sunny and - main reason perhaps - the rocks and hills and craters provide assistance for habitats and mining that cannot be found at Antarctica.

The question of regulation of antartican tourism didn't arise yet because the number of tourists isn't that high and the resources of water are rich because Antarctica is part of our water-rich Earth.

spacecowboy ... I agree there is not a whole hell of a lot to see in the antarctic, but it still attracts tourists nevertheless. Including that small but growing brand of adventure tourists. What is there to see on Mars? It's a pretty uniform looking planet to my eye, what am I missing?

Ekkehard ... what if something like The Antarctic Treaty was applied to mars. I think something like that stands a very good chance of happening.

I wondered if you thought colonization of mars would be a response to overpopulation on earth, so you think people would ignore antarctica as a cheaper/safer/easier option and go straight to mars first? No way.

I dont know how constant the winds on Mars are but a wind turbine might be a better alternative to a nuclear power station which would have to be fairly large to supply a reasonable sized colony. Geothermal power doesn't look like a goer at the moment as Mars appears to be inactive. So the best bet might be a hibrid solar/wind power station.

Wind turbines on Mars. That sounds like a fine idea. Except having moving parts necessitates some sort of maintenance requirement, more so than solar power anyway. Not good for robotic labs, but it's not so hard when you've got a human wandering around the place.

How thin is too thin an atmosphere for a workable wind turbine? Given off the shelf technology.